Level as Tank/Heal

Being able to respec on the fly is not an issue. At end game very few people actually have competitive gear for more than 1 role. Simply respecing from dps to tank while not having any tank gear, isn't going to help at all, an it's very hard for people to acquire more than 1 set of gear and keep it up to date.

And spec while leveling ?!

You're only gonna level for 2 weeks or so. I'd much rather have dual spec than not upsetting some guy for 2 weeks.

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And there's another root of the problem. Leveling speed.

Soloability, Re-spec, and Dual-Spec gameplay options trivialize content. People tear through it because they can manipulate the casual gameplay mechanics to make content easy and trivial.

If you have to group and be social to advance, it takes quite a bit longer to level just because of the nature of finding a group, setting up a camp or traveling to a specific area, and then the socializing and general BS'ing occuring while playing.

EQ1 took forever to level. EQ2 took forever to level. Even Vanguard took awhile to level. All group dependent games, all glorious. All had a massive amount of content.

The idea of reaching level cap in 2 weeks is ridiculous, though it's so common in today's MMO genre. That's because the developers of these games have let us, the fans, down, and instead try for the money grab and appeal to casual players that need to have everything now, but generally leave anyway when they get it.

I like Everquest's massive leveling rate. I'm fine with a 24/7 player hitting cap in 2 months. A fairly hardcore player should hit cap in 4-6. Casual get no help from me. No bonus xp, no hand holding, none of this <REDACTED>. It can take them a year to hit cap, and then the next expansion can come out.

This entire STUPID rut the industry is in is because they make easy games that cater to casual players. This means they need all these dungeon finders and dual spec options, so the casual gamer can get things easier and not have to work to make friends or make decisions that matter. They have to focus so many resources on a solo game aspect, that then requires constant updates to keep the player interested. That's where the industry has gone wrong. They had it right in the beginning when they made these games out of love and ideals, instead of a cash grab.

MMOs should be social. They should be group dependent (Soloing should not be in these games). And they should be hard, time-consuming, and oh so sweet when you actually achieve a miilestone or gear. Any MMO, where someone levels to cap in two weeks is a broken game. How the hell am I supposed to stay interested in this thing for 5 or 10 years? I don't have ADD, I like to invest myself in one game for the long haul.

Hate to break it go you, Mattie, but if that's what you're looking for, you'd better start learning Korean. You're not going to find what you're looking for this side of the Pacific. Ever.

Seriously, a YEAR to cap? On a single character? Because I've got a job and a family? Not going to happen. Would not interest me, or the vast majority of the NorAm/European gaming market. That may have worked for City because it didn't have a meaningful endgame, but for any game with any degree of emphasis on level cap, that just will not fly. And it shouldn't. The "hardcore" represent MAYBE 5% of the population. Catering to that small a market is a good plan for failure.

You confuse casuals with "gimmenows." I am casual. I play maybe 15-20 hours a week. I like challenge, I like knowing that I won because I have skill. I also want to explore and read quest text and enjoy the journey up. I have no illusions about being part of progression raiding, and you know what? I don't want to be. That doesn't mean I should be excluded entirely from raiding, ever, just because I'm not as "leet" as you. I don't want it easy, though, and I certainly don't want to be buying my purples off a vendor from grinding dungeons.

EQ was a bad game. There, I said it. It never gained a large subscriber base because it was a soul-crushing grind with minimal purpose UNLESS you were one of the few graced with the honor of being in a guild. If you were a poor newbie who happened to roll a Vah'Shir, good luck even leaving the starter zone; the Cave of Doom would eat you alive. Repeatedly. And you'd never survive the corpse run, so kiss your meager possessions goodbye. I actually tried to play it for a couple months. Most I've met uninstalled before the first month was out; there's no point to paying someone to kick you in the fork repeatedly.

If WildStar is going to be successful, it'll be designed for me and mine. The "hardcores" (ie: wannabes) will be just like all the other locusts and keep jumping from game to game, looking for the elusive "perfect world" that doesn't exist. If WS lives up to its billing, I'll be happy to plant my flag on Nexus. Right next to my Aurin treehouse.

I want to throw my hat in the ring on this subject. I have played many different MMOs, and have always loved being a healer. Of the games I have played, the ones I have stuck to and gotten the most enjoyment from was the ones that had a very defined "Holy Trinity". Let's face it, lots of people want to pew pew, but very few actually want to be responsible for being the battlefield commander. With that though in mind, tanks SHOULD do less damage, but be able to handle multiple mobs and survive longer. Healers SHOULD do less damage, but have insane survivability. DPS SHOULD be able to nuke, but have to be mindful of their threat and health pool.

Sadly, many MMOs start off with the trinity, and end up giving way to allowing everyone to be a hybrid, which is very wrong imho. Aside from that, there are 2 things that I think need to be handled well, that very few other games have. That's dual specs and gear drops. Don't start flaming just yet, let me explain. I believe that dual specs should be an option, again, an OPTION but only counter to leveling an alt. That means that for you to even be able to dual spec, you would have to reach level cap. After that should be a very long, difficult, and expensive quest line to open up your new 2nd talent spec. I feel like this would weed out weekend warrior healers and tanks that have that spec just to get into dungeons faster. These players are very rarely dedicated to the craft, and give true healers and tanks a bad name. A little more salt in the wounds for tanks, with the addition of some players speccing tank, then playing as DPS just so they can hold a little more threat and be able to hit more mobs at once.

Secondly is gear drops. It seems like tanks always share stats with melee DPS, and healers always share stats with caster DPS. With this model, I have had many, many, many healer intended items stolen from me because a caster DPS would get an extra 30 INT off that bad boy. I think that the gear, and the stats to go with it, should be as clearly defined as the classes that play them. Make sure that tank gear is ONLY good for a tanks, DPS for a DPS, and healer for a healer.

Rolling a tank, DPS, or a healer should never be a difficult choice. We all know how we like to play our games. From everything I've seen of WildStar so far, being a DPS won't be a pain trying to get into dungeons because you'll have plenty of content to keep you occupied while you sit in the queue, and you probably won't notice if you've been waiting for 5 or 45 minutes. Tanks and healers move at a slower pace, and because of that we are rewarded by getting into queues faster than DPS. It all seems pretty fair and even to me, but that's just my 2 cents.

Don't like this concept. I HATED Rift because all players could be all things at a moment's notice. There was no class individuality. I play tanks and I play healers. I never DPS. I like being rare. I like being needed. I like being known. That's the general personality for most tanks and healers. If it's as easy as any class being able to tank or heal at any time simply by respec or dual spec, then this game will fail. There has to be some class uniqueness and individuality for the player to feel invested in his character. Not to mention starring in a particular role helps with forming social groups as others star in their roles and interdependency is formed.

WildStar is absolutely doing some things completely wrong in this regard, but the degree it will harm the game depends on how easy it is to respec, if they will have dual spec, and how permanent and important the skill points are as you level.

As long as I can be a better tank or healer than some primary DPS class that wants to respec on the fly, than I'll be happy. If I can't, and any DPS can be a superb tank or healer at any time just be respec'ing or hitting their dual spec button, I'll know this game isn't for me.

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i had the problem in Rift of "this is my spec, i'm not changing it" and people would get annoyed/mad at me 'cause i was a ChloroMage, and they wanted me to go dps. i did NOT dps on that mage...i sucked at it! like one random pug group dungeon i did, i'd queue'd as heal and support making queue faster, popped in and was assigned as support. i sat there and did more dps then one of the dps'ers and more healing than the actual healer . they got mad at me and tried to tell me i had to go full dps. i also had a little healing cleric that ran around with my hubby's tanking cleric in PvP. Even with x-server battlegrounds we were known, "Oh Hell Yes! It's Kat and Iggy, we're gonna win this one guys!" was a regularly repeated mantra in the 20-30s level range.

then there was my priest in WoW, she was leveled as healer, but always had a guildie with her 'cause we were trying to power level her to 60 for Fear Ward (go go Dwarf Priest!!) for Ony. took her 10 days /played to hit 60 (which was quick at the time!). best memory of that char was our MT taking me up to Felwood and pulling Elites trying to die. i was level like 50 and he was 60, and he pulled about 10-15 things at a time including 2-3 elites. he never died

[13:31] <Blankspace> I need a new drink[13:31] <Blankspace> I trust no one but you[13:34] <Blankspace> Kat, the amount of love I have for the drinks that you make me is not able to be described in words anyone knows

I want to throw my hat in the ring on this subject. I have played many different MMOs, and have always loved being a healer. Of the games I have played, the ones I have stuck to and gotten the most enjoyment from was the ones that had a very defined "Holy Trinity". Let's face it, lots of people want to pew pew, but very few actually want to be responsible for being the battlefield commander. With that though in mind, tanks SHOULD do less damage, but be able to handle multiple mobs and survive longer. Healers SHOULD do less damage, but have insane survivability. DPS SHOULD be able to nuke, but have to be mindful of their threat and health pool.

Sadly, many MMOs start off with the trinity, and end up giving way to allowing everyone to be a hybrid, which is very wrong imho. Aside from that, there are 2 things that I think need to be handled well, that very few other games have. That's dual specs and gear drops. Don't start flaming just yet, let me explain. I believe that dual specs should be an option, again, an OPTION but only counter to leveling an alt. That means that for you to even be able to dual spec, you would have to reach level cap. After that should be a very long, difficult, and expensive quest line to open up your new 2nd talent spec. I feel like this would weed out weekend warrior healers and tanks that have that spec just to get into dungeons faster. These players are very rarely dedicated to the craft, and give true healers and tanks a bad name. A little more salt in the wounds for tanks, with the addition of some players speccing tank, then playing as DPS just so they can hold a little more threat and be able to hit more mobs at once.

Secondly is gear drops. It seems like tanks always share stats with melee DPS, and healers always share stats with caster DPS. With this model, I have had many, many, many healer intended items stolen from me because a caster DPS would get an extra 30 INT off that bad boy. I think that the gear, and the stats to go with it, should be as clearly defined as the classes that play them. Make sure that tank gear is ONLY good for a tanks, DPS for a DPS, and healer for a healer.

Rolling a tank, DPS, or a healer should never be a difficult choice. We all know how we like to play our games. From everything I've seen of WildStar so far, being a DPS won't be a pain trying to get into dungeons because you'll have plenty of content to keep you occupied while you sit in the queue, and you probably won't notice if you've been waiting for 5 or 45 minutes. Tanks and healers move at a slower pace, and because of that we are rewarded by getting into queues faster than DPS. It all seems pretty fair and even to me, but that's just my 2 cents.

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Absolutely agree with your two cents. And I like your idea about hitting cap and then earning the right to dual spec. That's a compromise that I would be perfectly willing to embrace. And I HATE dual spec.

In terms of gear drops, I like what I've heard from WildStar so far on that front. From screenshots, we can tell we have quite a few stats to focus on, and the gear screenies I've seen have been pretty specialized, especially since each class only gets one weapon type....ever.

I think when loot drops, it will be very clear which class it's meant to go to. Now, the bigger concern is the augment information revealed today. What if someone wants an augment off an item clearly meant for another class? Will they try and snag the item just to pop out the mod? If that's an option, you know people will. And then the entire loot fiasco is back to square one where all the classes might want the item.

i had the problem in Rift of "this is my spec, i'm not changing it" and people would get annoyed/mad at me 'cause i was a ChloroMage, and they wanted me to go dps. i did NOT dps on that mage...i sucked at it! like one random pug group dungeon i did, i'd queue'd as heal and support making queue faster, popped in and was assigned as support. i sat there and did more dps then one of the dps'ers and more healing than the actual healer . they got mad at me and tried to tell me i had to go full dps. i also had a little healing cleric that ran around with my hubby's tanking cleric in PvP. Even with x-server battlegrounds we were known, "Oh Hell Yes! It's Kat and Iggy, we're gonna win this one guys!" was a regularly repeated mantra in the 20-30s level range.

then there was my priest in WoW, she was leveled as healer, but always had a guildie with her 'cause we were trying to power level her to 60 for Fear Ward (go go Dwarf Priest!!) for Ony. took her 10 days /played to hit 60 (which was quick at the time!). best memory of that char was our MT taking me up to Felwood and pulling Elites trying to die. i was level like 50 and he was 60, and he pulled about 10-15 things at a time including 2-3 elites. he never died

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You sound like a very good and dedicated healer. You would have been legendary in EQ. My wife played a healing Chloro in Rift, I used to hop on her toon and run dungeons just because it was such a fun class. They ripped the concept from the Blood Mage in Vanguard, which was fine with me, Blood Mage is my all time favorite class, well maybe besides a Shadow Knight. Everquest 1 version. But in terms of a healer, I love the concept of healing through damage. Vanguard had another melee healer, the Disciple, that healed through his melee damage. That was a great class as well.

Anyway, that's pretty cool that you were still known across servers. That's a bigger goal than I really want, I just want the chance to be known as a great healer/tank on my own server. The game has to allow me that chance to build a reputation though. If the game is too easy or there is just no community because everyone is off soloing, than I can be as good as I want, but nobody will really care. And then I won't care. And then I'll find a new game. You're a dedicated healer, I'm sure you understand.

Hate to break it go you, Mattie, but if that's what you're looking for, you'd better start learning Korean. You're not going to find what you're looking for this side of the Pacific. Ever.

Seriously, a YEAR to cap? On a single character? Because I've got a job and a family? Not going to happen. Would not interest me, or the vast majority of the NorAm/European gaming market. That may have worked for City because it didn't have a meaningful endgame, but for any game with any degree of emphasis on level cap, that just will not fly. And it shouldn't. The "hardcore" represent MAYBE 5% of the population. Catering to that small a market is a good plan for failure.

You confuse casuals with "gimmenows." I am casual. I play maybe 15-20 hours a week. I like challenge, I like knowing that I won because I have skill. I also want to explore and read quest text and enjoy the journey up. I have no illusions about being part of progression raiding, and you know what? I don't want to be. That doesn't mean I should be excluded entirely from raiding, ever, just because I'm not as "leet" as you. I don't want it easy, though, and I certainly don't want to be buying my purples off a vendor from grinding dungeons.

EQ was a bad game. There, I said it. It never gained a large subscriber base because it was a soul-crushing grind with minimal purpose UNLESS you were one of the few graced with the honor of being in a guild. If you were a poor newbie who happened to roll a Vah'Shir, good luck even leaving the starter zone; the Cave of Doom would eat you alive. Repeatedly. And you'd never survive the corpse run, so kiss your meager possessions goodbye. I actually tried to play it for a couple months. Most I've met uninstalled before the first month was out; there's no point to paying someone to kick you in the fork repeatedly.

If WildStar is going to be successful, it'll be designed for me and mine. The "hardcores" (ie: wannabes) will be just like all the other locusts and keep jumping from game to game, looking for the elusive "perfect world" that doesn't exist. If WS lives up to its billing, I'll be happy to plant my flag on Nexus. Right next to my Aurin treehouse.

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Lets see. Need to keep the response on topic, but be able to make a few rebuttals as well....I can do this.

I had originally liked your post as I read it because I thought it was a valid opposing view point from a self proclaimed casual player. I can always respect that. I can understand how someone with limited time would balk at the idea of an extended leveling curve, especially if they were a tank or healer, since that would be slower leveling if having to solo. A casual player may not have the time to group with others for several hours to advance, which is usually the great benefit of a tank or healer, the demand for groups.

I do think a year to cap for a casual player is not a big deal, however, as long as the journey to that cap is fun. You, yourself, mentioned that you're not going to be progressively raiding. Well, that's generally why people rush to cap. So, my question would be, why, as a casual player, would you care how long it takes you to level as long as the journey is fun? This is extremely interesting to me because this is the exact phenomenon I see with casual players.

Also, I'm an attorney in Jacksonville, FL. I don't get to play like I did when I was in college in 1998. Compared to most, I'm probably casual as well especially if 20 hours a week is the criteria. I love raiding more than anything else in MMOs, but I'm not going to be in a rush to hit cap. I consume all content, all lore, everything on the journey up. It takes me forever. And I don't care. When I do eventually hit cap, I'll raid then. All I care about is that the game is fun, I feel unique with my character, and I can play with others to progress. And hopefully the people I play with are impressed with my ability to master my class and role.
Which is always a healer or tank. And I'm fine with those being harder to level than other classes.

Now, as far as EQ being a bad game, the facts shoot that theory down. And I had to cancel the like over that comment. It was a massive success at a time when gaming computers were not very common and were several thousand dollars. It ruled as "the" game until Warcraft dethroned it 7 years later, largely by copying everything about it. Which made sense, since Blizzard hired the guys from the top EQ guild to help design their game. However, it suffered the same fate as Warcraft would come to know, it got casualized. You obviously started playing at some point well after Luclin. That's the equivalent of just starting Warcraft after Lich King. The game was already casualized and dying. In reality, a good MMO seems to last about 5 years. After that, the concepts and graphics are usually just outdated and most people want a change.

Anyway, from one casual gamer to another, I appreciate your viewpoint, I just don't understand why you have it. Also, do you believe tanks/healers should level slower? And, what type of role do you usually play as?

For me questing has always been more of a chore then anything else. I'm a very challenge oriented gamer and while lore can interest me, i have never found leveling through quests fun. MMO's are fun for me because of what they offer in their group play. If grinding on group mobs or running lots of dungeons is a valid option for leveling i will do it in a heartbeat. The problem is, in most MMO's questing is just 2-3 times faster then anything you do as a group making it very hard to justify any other play-style.

I know the definitions can be fluid but i would not consider someone who plays 20hours a week a casual. While its not the most hardcore of the hardcore i consider casual to be someone who plays maybe once or twice a week and my not even have max level characters.

Back on topic. With pretty much every mmo i play i end up questing with one of my friends. So even though i play a healer the overall questing speed is faster for both of us. Faster for me because i actually have some dps to kill mobs quickly and faster for them because there's no downtime.

If you play through questing solo as a healer it really just depends on the game. In rift as a hybrid spec'd cleirc you were one of the best/fastest soloers in the game where as if you played a inquisitor healer in TOR it was slow as hell, the only consolation being your companion could still dps. I believe with the flexibility to pick skills from a large pool of class specific abilities all classes will have a spec that can solo well. Of course this is all speculation and we will have to wait and see.

They already said raids will be catered to hardcore players so i sincerely hope that leveling wont be as well. Every MMO needs a solid playerbase else it will fail and things like dual spec are imho one of the things that people got so used to cause it is very convenient carbine would do good to implement it. I never had the problem of very bad players using offspecs for faster queue times beeing a majority, yes it happened but those cases were as rare.

OT: If possible i always level as DPS because most of the time it's simply faster and i dont enjoy pure questing over a long period of time. Though i did level my warrior in WoW as a tank cause at the time i didn't like the feel of offwarris at all and somehow just stuck to leveling as def throughout all the addons.

They already said raids will be catered to hardcore players so i sincerely hope that leveling wont be as well. Every MMO needs a solid playerbase else it will fail and things like dual spec are imho one of the things that people got so used to cause it is very convenient carbine would do good to implement it. I never had the problem of very bad players using offspecs for faster queue times beeing a majority, yes it happened but those cases were as rare.

OT: If possible i always level as DPS because most of the time it's simply faster and i dont enjoy pure questing over a long period of time. Though i did level my warrior in WoW as a tank cause at the time i didn't like the feel of offwarris at all and somehow just stuck to leveling as def throughout all the addons.

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I don't think you will have worry, not considering gear, you will be able to select which of all the class skills you wish to use while outside of combat. So it goes a step further and basically lets you respec to the situation at hand.

For me questing has always been more of a chore then anything else. I'm a very challenge oriented gamer and while lore can interest me, i have never found leveling through quests fun. MMO's are fun for me because of what they offer in their group play. If grinding on group mobs or running lots of dungeons is a valid option for leveling i will do it in a heartbeat. The problem is, in most MMO's questing is just 2-3 times faster then anything you do as a group making it very hard to justify any other play-style.

I know the definitions can be fluid but i would not consider someone who plays 20hours a week a casual. While its not the most hardcore of the hardcore i consider casual to be someone who plays maybe once or twice a week and my not even have max level characters.

Back on topic. With pretty much every mmo i play i end up questing with one of my friends. So even though i play a healer the overall questing speed is faster for both of us. Faster for me because i actually have some dps to kill mobs quickly and faster for them because there's no downtime.

If you play through questing solo as a healer it really just depends on the game. In rift as a hybrid spec'd cleirc you were one of the best/fastest soloers in the game where as if you played a inquisitor healer in TOR it was slow as hell, the only consolation being your companion could still dps. I believe with the flexibility to pick skills from a large pool of class specific abilities all classes will have a spec that can solo well. Of course this is all speculation and we will have to wait and see.

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I'm actually with you on the questing. I think a lot of people are. That's why games are starting to turn away from the themepark style and back to Sandbox. Questing is for a solo RPG experience. If it's in an MMO, it negates the grouping aspect of the game. Every time.

Now, I'm fine with certain quests. Pretty much the ones from Everquest 1. Those were usually massive quest lines that took months and many raids to make progress. I'm referring to the epic weapon quests, shawl and ring quests, even the key quests to enter raid dungeons were fine with me.

But, for the most part, I'd take every solo based quest for the purposes of leveling, out of the game. Just drop the players in the game, give them the lore, and let them group together to become more powerful and gather items. As long as group gameplay is fun and the content is challenging, people will play it. I'm 100% convinced that playing these games in a group is much more enjoyable than doing so solo. Of course, you need to be playing with quality people, but there are ways to insure that's the case.

I'm actually with you on the questing. I think a lot of people are. That's why games are starting to turn away from the themepark style and back to Sandbox. Questing is for a solo RPG experience. If it's in an MMO, it negates the grouping aspect of the game. Every time.

Now, I'm fine with certain quests. Pretty much the ones from Everquest 1. Those were usually massive quest lines that took months and many raids to make progress. I'm referring to the epic weapon quests, shawl and ring quests, even the key quests to enter raid dungeons were fine with me.

But, for the most part, I'd take every solo based quest for the purposes of leveling, out of the game. Just drop the players in the game, give them the lore, and let them group together to become more powerful and gather items. As long as group gameplay is fun and the content is challenging, people will play it. I'm 100% convinced that playing these games in a group is much more enjoyable than doing so solo. Of course, you need to be playing with quality people, but there are ways to insure that's the case.

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So with focus groups and recent stats suggesting 60-65% of players prefer solo play your continued suggestion is to remove almost all of the opportunity to do so and expect the game will be successful? I don't see how you can reconcile this strategy with the prevailing gamer culture.

I'm afraid that traditional questing with exclamation points over peoples heads is never entirely going away. Its just so engrained into peoples minds at this point that this is leveling in mmos. To be honest, that's fine with me, what I'm looking for at this point is options. At level cap in wildstar solo play as well as group play is rewarded so why shouldn't this be equally true while leveling.

I do think public quests/world events/rifts/whatever your game calls them are a step in the right direction, especially if some of the content is hard enough to require a coordinated group. At the very least wildstar does seam to ditch some of the solo only zone mentality with world bosses.

So with focus groups and recent stats suggesting 60-65% of players prefer solo play your continued suggestion is to remove almost all of the opportunity to do so and expect the game will be successful? I don't see how you can reconcile this strategy with the prevailing gamer culture.

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I'm not quite old enough to have played eq1 (i would have been 8 in 1999) so i cant exactly speak to how eq1 worked. But, in eq2 you could pretty much do any pve you wanted to level. Grinding in open world dungeons was just as viable as questing. Choice is all I'm asking for.

i was at the top of the leveling curve for Rift as a healer. I wasn't first, nor did I care to be, but I was one of 10 people in the upper zones most of the time. i find leveling as a healer pretty fast in most games. tank is usually fine. while dps is probably technically faster, unless you are going for server first I really don't think it makes that much of a difference anymore.

So with focus groups and recent stats suggesting 60-65% of players prefer solo play your continued suggestion is to remove almost all of the opportunity to do so and expect the game will be successful? I don't see how you can reconcile this strategy with the prevailing gamer culture.

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Successful is relative. Eve Online, amongst other MMOs, have proven you can be quite successful and make a ton of money without having a bazillion subs.

And sometimes, usually all the time, people are lazy and take the easy way out. It's our fallacy as a culture. I'm not sure catering to the anti-social crowd is the smartest idea to advance the genre anyway. I think it's just a money grab.

At some point we went off track of what an MMO is supposed to be. Or at least the concept originally created. It's nice we're still trying to be an MMO at end game with raiding, but up to that point, people tend to solo since it's just easier. And then they get mad when they have to socialize with others to see the end game content. And most quit.

I believe if you make a game correctly, and it's fun, strategic, and enjoyable to group to progress, you'll develop a more close knit community, and they'll stay with the game for the long haul. I also think a game like that would be successful with a subscription model. The last people I want to attract to my game are young kids, anti-social adults, or anyone else that has no interest in interacting with others and becoming invested in the game world.

I'd basically just re-make Everquest 1 with new graphics and combat mechanics. Or maybe make a Vanguard game that isn't completely ruined because of technological issues.

i was at the top of the leveling curve for Rift as a healer. I wasn't first, nor did I care to be, but I was one of 10 people in the upper zones most of the time. i find leveling as a healer pretty fast in most games. tank is usually fine. while dps is probably technically faster, unless you are going for server first I really don't think it makes that much of a difference anymore.

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I've always leveled faster as a healer than any other role. I never solo. I just get groups non-stop as soon as I log in. It's a little harder as a tank, but not too bad. As long as you are social and group, I'm not convinced leveling as a tank or healer is slower in the long run.

Successful is relative. Eve Online, amongst other MMOs, have proven you can be quite successful and make a ton of money without having a bazillion subs.

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Successful actually isn't all that relative, companies exist to make money and sure Eve Online is profitable but it's small potatoes when you compare it's what 500k roughly subs to WoW's almost 10 million.

Not only that last year it was recorded in EVE Online's own newsletter that despite EVE not catering to solo players over half their player base tended to play solo anyway. You can't ignore the solo player base it's basically equivalent to throwing away money.

Successful actually isn't all that relative, companies exist to make money and sure Eve Online is profitable but it's small potatoes when you compare it's what 500k roughly subs to WoW's almost 10 million.

Not only that last year it was recorded in EVE Online's own newsletter that despite EVE not catering to solo players over half their player base tended to play solo anyway. You can't ignore the solo player base it's basically equivalent to throwing away money.

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Fair enough. I guess my rebuttal to that would be that we haven't seen what a group-centric game can do since the MMO market exploded. The Asian games are all group centric and making a ton of money overseas, but they only make their way to us a year or so after launch, and nobody wants to start a game that late. Plus, the language barrier is massive. Most of Warcraft's subs are from the Asian market. I thought I saw it was 90%. Something insane like that.

So far, and as of late, AAA Western MMOs sell a ton of boxes and then everyone quits. No reason a group-centric game can't "achieve" that result.
I'd just like to see a AAA title try. Maybe Everquest 3 will later this year, I don't know. But it would be nice to bring the social focus back to MMOs that Everquest 1 blew up the market with in the first place.